Yesterday afternoon following a 30 minute confirmation hearing, the Delaware Senate unanimously confirmed Chancellor Leo Strine as the next Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court. That's a marked difference from Strine's initial appointment to the Chancery Court, which was quite controversial at the time. Yesterday's event was a much smoother affair, according to Reuters:

The outspoken head of the state's nationally important business court was confirmed unanimously as the chief justice of Delaware's Supreme Court on Wednesday after breezing through legislative approval.

Leo Strine was confirmed by a 20-0 vote in the state Senate's Executive Committee. He said he expected to be sworn in as chief justice in the coming weeks.

DelawareOnline noted that the confirmation - quick as it was - touched on non-corporate subjects, too:

Strine spoke about a number of issues in his confirmation hearing in committee, saying at one point that Delaware policymakers must discuss ways to reduce the state’s levels of incarceration.

“We cannot continue to have the increases in percentage of our population that’s incarcerated as an answer. That cannot be the long-term answer for our society,” Strine said. “It’s a very complex thing. No one has an easy solution. But the idea that we can continue to incarcerate more and more of our population without having an adverse effect on economic growth and even our feelings about ourselves as a community isn’t realistic.”

OK, so that's that. Next up ... nominating a replacement for Strine on the Chancery Court.